{"id":6004,"date":"2012-02-16T11:13:03","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T17:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=6004"},"modified":"2012-02-16T11:13:03","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T17:13:03","slug":"your-weekly-drought-update-improved-but-far-from-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/16\/your-weekly-drought-update-improved-but-far-from-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Weekly Drought Update: Improved, But Far From Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5634\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"The skeleton of a fish sits on the dry shores of Lake Buchanan, which is nearing historically low levels.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/P1040941.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5634\" title=\"P1040941\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/P1040941-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/P1040941-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/P1040941-620x465.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/P1040941-220x165.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/P1040941-138x103.jpg 138w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Mose Buchele\/StateImpact Texas<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The skeleton of a fish sits on the dry shores of Lake Buchanan, which is nearing historically low levels.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Another week, another update from the <a href=\"http:\/\/droughtmonitor.unl.edu\/\">National Drought Monitor<\/a>. While there hasn&#8217;t been much movement this week, there are some signs of continued improvement: Three percent of the state moved out of the highest level of drought, &#8220;exceptional,&#8221; meaning now only twenty percent of Texas is in &#8220;exceptional&#8221; drought. That&#8217;s the lowest level since last April, and a far ways from the peak of 88 percent of the state in &#8220;exceptional&#8221; drought in early October.<\/p>\n<p>Above-average rains in much of the state have brought real progress, particularly for Texans in urban areas.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/02\/the-countdown-continues-5-percent-of-texas-is-now-drought-free\/\">Dallas\/Fort Worth has become drought-free<\/a>, while much of Harris County (and Houston) and all of El Paso are\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/droughtmonitor.unl.edu\/DM_state.htm?TX,S\">now in the lightest stage of drought<\/a>, the \u201cmoderate\u201d level. Austin and San Antonio have moved from the second level of drought, \u201csevere,\u201d from levels of \u201cextreme\u201d and \u201cexceptional\u201d before that.<\/p>\n<p>Some more details from the drought monitor give both good and bad news:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Moderate to heavy rains exceeding 1 inch fell on much of southeastern Texas as well as isolated locations in southernmost and central parts of the state. Despite the fact these rains brought 30-day totals to over 5 inches (and over 10 in isolated spots) in some east-central and southeastern areas, only modest regional improvement seemed warranted, since 6-month totals remained more than 8 inches below normal across most of the D2 to D4 areas. As a result, Lake Somerville remained at only 59% of capacity, the lowest since records began in 1990.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, one area in and around San Antonio was improved to D1 after moderate rainfall. The Bexar Index Well has risen 9 feet in the past month, and is over 20 feet above the low recorded last summer. In addition, the Edwards Aquifer rose to its highest level since late April 2011.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read more at our topic page, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another week, another update from the National Drought Monitor. While there hasn&#8217;t been much movement this week, there are some signs of continued improvement: Three percent of the state moved out of the highest level of drought, &#8220;exceptional,&#8221; meaning now only twenty percent of Texas is in &#8220;exceptional&#8221; drought. That&#8217;s the lowest level since last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":5634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6004"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6009,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004\/revisions\/6009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}